Why Steve Jobs Stepping Down Could be Good For Apple
Yesterday, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple, volunteering himself to be chairman of the board instead. I predicted that their stock would plummet, but my company’s president (also named Steve!) said he didn’t think the stock would drop much because Apple “graduated everyone into the idea that he’s out.” Turns out, Steve was right — guess there’s a reason he’s in the driver’s seat.
In any case, I think this could be great for Apple. Actually, when Jobs leaves completely, I think Apple could make some great strides forward. How, you ask?
Because they won’t have Jobs’s ego holding them back. As one big example, HTML 5 is not replacing Flash, sorry buddy. Flash does not drain batteries like the filthy whore that Jobs makes it out to be (as proven by Flash running fine on hacked iPhones). If iOS devices were to support Flash, that would knock out the main advantage that Android devices have*. And hey, maybe they’ll be more willing to admit to mistakes too. Remember that whole iPhone 4 antenna issue and Steve Jobs’s response to it? Yeah.
Edit: It has been pointed out that I only used the example of Flash, which does not a valid argument make. So as another example, Apple has a somewhat-recent policy of disallowing apps from linking to their own websites where people can buy stuff. This, I feel, comes from the Jobs-like mentality of, “We’re the best, if you want in on our platform you play by our rules and give us a cut of everything that happens on our device.” However, this will ultimately weaken them as companies turn instead to web apps, as Amazon recently did with their Cloud Reader. This gets consumers more comfortable with using web apps, and companies soon realize, “Hey, you mean I only have to pay to develop this once, and it will work on any mobile device with a browser — including both Apple products and Android products? Sweet!” More companies do that, meaning iOS has fewer exclusive apps, and consumers have a more viable choice in alternatives.
In general, I feel that Jobs has an attitude of, “We are the market leaders, therefore the market goes where we say, not the other way around. We tell people what they want; they do not tell us what they want.” Which, to some extent, is true. But that level of ego also blinds one to their own weaknesses, which is to Apple’s detriment.
* I’m sure Android devices have many other awesome advantages, but from an average non-tech-savvy average Joe perspective, Flash is really the one functional thing missing from iPhones and iPads that Android has.
it was the last two times. Apparantly he can either think deep thoughts or run a company but not both
I think they’ll be smooth sailing for a while, but they will lack the vision that Jobs had, which means they’ll pull a microsoft and sort of coast along and either crash and burn or just sort of loom whilst slowly becoming irrelevant or just kind of there.
The entire argument of this article is, “…it doesn’t play Flash…” yet the adoption rate proves that most don’t seem to care…? Kind of a weak article, even if I do hope the guy is right and Apple let’s go of their anti-Flash attitude…
Heh, well I wrote it very quickly. As one example of another way I sense that Jobs’s ego hurts Apple: they’re shooting themselves in the foot with the “you can’t have your app link to your website for people to buy stuff” policy. That only causes companies to make web apps instead of iOS apps (as Amazon just did with their Cloud Reader), which means that now that app can be used on any platform instead of just iOS. Then companies see, “Oh, I can develop this one app that works on all mobile devices with a browser, so it’s cheaper.” Users start becoming more used to web apps as opposed to native apps… and Apple’s dominance forms cracks.
Oh, YOU wrote it! Well glad I didn’t say all those OTHER things I was thinking…
lol Apple shot themselves in the foot with the refusal of Flash, perhaps driving some preference to other platforms as they became available…
It was a good point; I did put it together quite sloppy-like and not provide enough examples to back my premise up.
But yeah in general I feel like Jobs has a “we’re the best, the market goes where we tell them and not the other way around” mentality — which he is somewhat justified in, but it is also harmful to Apple in many ways.